Headway in Cutting Red Tape for Starting New Business

The so-called “Starting Business Single Window” was launched on Saturday, in the presence of government and private sector officials, including Economy Minister Farhad Dejpasand, the heads of Iran and Tehran chambers of commerce, Gholamhossein Shafei and Masoud Khansari respectively, Ali Aqa-Mohammadi, a member of Expediency Council, and Zabihollah Khodaeeyan, the head of Iranian Deeds and Properties Registration Organization. 
Prospective business owners no longer need to visit the Iranian National Tax Administration’s offices to obtain the tax file number. The Iranian Deeds and Properties Registration Organization will electronically put at INTA’s disposal all the information it needs to issue tax file numbers, also known as Economic Code in Iran, for real entities under the new mechanism. Consequently, the time it takes to start a business will decrease from 72.5 days to three days, IRNA reported.
“Prior to this new measure, there were 45 stages to register for tax file numbers, of which 44 could be completed in less than half an hour but the last stage, the authentication process, would take days and consequently hurt ease of doing business,” Mohammad Ali Dehqan-Dehnavi, deputy economy minister, said. 
According to the World Bank’s Ease of Doing Business Report of 2020, Iran ranks 178th among 190 economies in “Starting a Business” indicator that records the number of procedures, time, cost and paid-in minimum capital required to start a limited liability company. 
“It takes 10.5 procedures, 72.5 days and 1.1% of per capita income to launch a company in Iran,” according to WB’s flagship report. 
“The online authentication process would expedite the procedure by 55 days and improve Iran’s ranking in Starting a Business sub-index from 178th to 130th and the overall place of the country in the EDB index from 127th to 115th,” Dehqan-Dehnavi said.